0465 | The Lusiads | Luís Vaz de Camões

byJohnonSeptember 15, 2014

Context: Bought a bluetooth shower speaker while listening to the Ludiads.

There’s no doubt that this deserves its place on the 1001 books list. There’s no doubt that this is one of history’s greatest works, an epic poem of both literary and historical proportions rightly famed. And there’s no doubt that this is one of the most laborious books I’ve read in a long time.

This is a hagiography of early Portuguese explorers who not only did no wrong, but quite rightly stamped out any wrong they found, installing in its place enlightenment where there was before only darkness. The baddies are very definitely the conquered (although not referred to as such of course), the goodies, are, quite deservedly, the Portuguese.

No mention of genocide or syphilis here. No mention of forced abductions or looting of local resources. This depicts the first tantalising groundswell of world colonisation. Not only was there a divine mandate, the people themselves were in fact divine!

It must be a confusing text for the modern-day Portuguese to read. Much of what was their former empire is still riven with poverty and internal strife (think Madagascar and Mozambique). As my mother lives in the land of Lusitania, I’ve visited it many times. Lovely though much of it is, there is very little there to support the belief these days that they were descended from gods. It displays a far humbler countenance.

I certainly found this work confusing as much of the narrative consists of lengthy speeches by both dwellers of earth and heaven. As with much classical literature, the gods can’t help getting involved. Their speeches are even harder to fathom. Through this, in patches, you get glimpses of the voyages that da Gama undertook. But that’s certainly not easy to follow or the main thrust of the work.

A difficult text and one very much a product of the 16th century when the white man, it seemed, could do no wrong.

OPENING LINE

ARMS and the Heroes, who from Lisbon’s shore,
Thro’ seas where sail was never spread before,
Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
And waves her woods above the wat’ry waste,
With prowess more than human forc’d their way
To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:
What wars they wag’d, what seas, what dangers pass’d,
What glorious empire crown’d their toils at last,
Vent’rous I sing, on soaring pinions borne,
And all my country’s wars the song adorn;
What kings, what heroes of my native land
Thunder’d on Asia’s and on Afric’s strand:
Illustrious shades, who levell’d in the dust
The idol-temples and the shrines of lust:
And where, erewhile, foul demons were rever’d,
To Holy Faith unnumber’d altars rear’d:
Illustrious names, with deathless laurels crown’d,
While time rolls on in every clime renown’d!

CLOSING LINE

This might reveal the ending. If you want to see the quote, click show

O let th’ Iambic Muse revenge that wrong
Which cannot slumber in thy sheets of lead;
Let thy abused honour crie as long
As there be quills to write, or eyes to reade:
On his rank name let thine own votes be turn’d,Oh may that man that hath the Muses scorn’d
Alive, nor dead, be ever of a Muse adorn’d.”